Jessica Abo
THE CLIENT:
Jessica Abo is an award-winning journalist, entrepreneur, best-selling author, and keynote speaker. As someone who has been on both sides of the camera, she has developed a program to train aspiring journalists to have the confidence to pitch, speak, and deliver high quality stories and interviews.
I first met Jessica years ago when she first moved to Los Angeles. She was looking for a photographer to cover an event and she was referred to me by a past client of mine. That one holiday brunch led to a handful of portrait sessions, event photography, and an image library shoot.
I’ve been lucky enough to have continued to work with her throughout the years and seen her grow both her business and her family. Plus, I’ve gotten to know some of her friends since covering various get-togethers. Shooting some of those events have led to some fun outings and delicious food.
Lifestyle Portraits
I love doing lifestyle portrait sessions with Jessica because she always picks fun and funky backdrops. We’ve done pretty much all our shoots on Melrose. That street alone has just a bunch of different colors to play around with and Jessica’s bright personality just comes across in all the photos quite easily.
The great thing about these photos is that they can be used for social media, press releases, or inside of a book-jacket for a debut book (she actually used one of my photos from her first shoot as her author bio pic).
Image Library & Stills
When it was time to shoot a course for her training program, Jessica thought it’d be a great opportunity to grab some stills of the process. I was able to join her production team on one of their shoot days and capture photos of her in action. It’s very interesting watching that whole process take place but it’s also fun to see how the images turned out and seeing how it’s being utilized on her sales page.
Check out the “Get Camera Ready” training HERE
Event Photography & Lifestyle Portraits
I’ve shot a lot of events for Jessica over the years, most of them being at her residence. But this year she wanted to go somewhere fun and memorable for all her closest friends. So we all met at a place called “Shot of Art” in DTLA. Everyone got to wear their yellow paint jacket and plastic booties for protection. And everyone got to experiment with all sorts of colors on their own canvas. There were all sorts of stations for various art projects and the walls made great backdrops for group photos. Pair all that with some great 80’s music and you got yourself a GREAT night.
Image Library & Stills
Early one morning I met up with Jessica and her trainee, Charlie Kerbal, to film the 7 AM news segment at CBS. Even though I’m not much of an early riser, it was really neat to be there to see the behind-the-scenes of a television studio but also it was so cool to see Jessica in action as the coach and trainer that she is. Charlie was there flying solo on her feature about Easter treats. Jessica was there to offer up moral support. And I was there to capture it all. And well, to take some great image library photos for her to use in any way she wants to grow her business.